Archive.org Defeats FBI's Demand For User Information

eldavojohn writes "Although we don't know what they were after due to the settlement, a gag order was just released that kept Internet Archive member Brewster Kahle quiet. The FBI had issued a national security letter to them under the Patriot Act. Kahle fought it. Hard. The EFF came to the aid of his lawyers and what resulted was one of the only three times an NSL has been challenged: all three have been rescinded. The FBI agreed to open some of the court files now for it to be public. The ACLU added, 'That makes you wonder about the the hundreds of thousands of NSLs that haven't been challenged.'"

It's time for Civil Disobedience and Regime Change

A five year prison term might be preferable to experiences like this [wired.com], especially when ratting out the FBI can save hundreds of thousands of innocent people from further constitutional abuse. I can not demand heroic action by others but I wish there had were more than three in the hundreds of thousands of abused citizens so far. Innocent people going to jail for protecting privacy of other innocent people would shut this monster program down fast.

Vote for anyone but Republicans in 2008 and vote out everyone who had anything to do with the poorly named Patriot act.

Re:It's time for Civil Disobedience and Regime Cha

That would be everyone in government of that time, except for Russ Feingold.

Re:It's time for Civil Disobedience and Regime Cha

That would be everyone in government of that time, except for Russ Feingold.

...and Ron Paul. I'm sure the very act of mentioning his name on Slashdot endangers my karma, but what the hell.

Re:It's time for Civil Disobedience and Regime Cha

Vote for anyone but Republicans in 2008 and vote out everyone who had anything to do with the poorly named Patriot act.

Personally, the voting record is more important to me than whether they have an R or D beside their name. If that means that I'm voting in Republicans then so be it. I'd rather have a Republican who refused to vote for the Patriot Act than a Democrat who dropped to his knees and pucked up to the Bush administration. Not that there are many Republicans who fit that description...

Re:It's time for Civil Disobedience and Regime Cha

Resist the temptation to make this partisan. Democrats were perfectly willing to vote for the PATRIOT Act and then try to excuse their complicity after the fact. That is not a commendable act.

Re:It's time for Civil Disobedience and Regime Cha

Or giving Bush a blank check to wage war for that matter. Not that I think that the Democrats are worse than the Republicans, on whole. I think the Republicans, as an organization, are definitely more corrupt. But the Democrats failed to take a solid stand when it mattered, and I'm not going to forget that, even if I vote Democrat out of necessity.

Re:It's time for Civil Disobedience and Regime Cha

That's why you vote for Obama. Clinton supported the PATRIOT act. Clinton supported the war. Obama was against both of those. I was honestly planning on voting Libertarian, because I can't bring myself to vote for anyone who supports the PATRIOT act and all this other crap...but Obama fits that quite well.

Re:It's time for Civil Disobedience and Regime Cha

Personally I think whoever chose the name of the bill and made sure it was rushed through without time for it to be read should be imprisoned as a driving force back to monarchy. Voting against it was deliberately made to look unpatriotic. Without being able to consider the content the vote was on the name alone - so the vote was along the lines of "do you want to look like a dirty commie or not? The guy that wants to be King says it's a good idea and if you go againt the King you go against the country".

Re:It's time for Civil Disobedience and Regime Cha

A five year prison term might be preferable to experiences like this [wired.com], especially when ratting out the FBI can save hundreds of thousands of innocent people from further constitutional abuse. I can not demand heroic action by others but I wish there had were more than three in the hundreds of thousands of abused citizens so far. Innocent people going to jail for protecting privacy of other innocent people would shut this monster program down fast.

Vote for anyone but Republicans in 2008 and vote out everyone who had anything to do with the poorly named Patriot act.

You had me right up until "Vote for anyone but Republicans...

Us against them. Good over evil. With or against us. Sheep think in those terms.

The emotional rhetoric from politicians never ends and their simple minded constituents emulate that behavior instead of engaging in critical thinking.

You do realize that there were PLENTY of Democrats that had voted for the Patriot Act. Hell, IIRC 99% of Congress didn't even read the God damn thing!

Re:It's time for Civil Disobedience and Regime Cha

Nobody read it. The Senate received the bill at 6 AM for a 9 AM vote. The bill ran to hundreds of pages. Not one member of Congress could have read it and understood the consequences of the bill in less than 3 hours.

Russ Feingold said at the time he wasn't necessarily opposed to the bill but couldn't vote for something with such sweeping changes without having time to read or research it. He has said since then that after reviewing it he supports about 95% of the things in the bill. He strongly opposes that other 5% that is total crap.

Man I love having him as my Senator :)

Re:It's time for Civil Disobedience and Regime Cha

Why does this remind me of the "lettre de cachet"? -a fill-in-the-blank warrant the rent a thug is sent out with where he fills it in as he needs. France got rid of them in 1790, our Constitution has provisions against this. Now all it takes is a Lawer with a power tie and a BIC Pen to ruin your life.
Welcome to the Land of the Free.....Have you any rights to declare?

Re:It's time for Civil Disobedience and Regime Cha

The Dubya Bush administration is like a paranoid meth addict

Yes. But not because of the attacks anymore, they fear you, their people. And it's not an isolated phenomenon. You can see it all over the "western" world, with more and more paranoid surveillance laws coming into existance. Most of them targeting the internet, which is a perfect tool to assemble and organize people of the same interests. Interests that may and often do go diametrally against the goals of our governments.

The advantage governments have over their subjects is that they are organized. No, don't laugh, I know how bureaucracy weighs it down, but they have the advantage of having trained specialists in every field necessary. Something you don't have. You are not a lawyer, bureaucrat, IT professional, PR guru and fundraiser all rolled into one. That's what gives your government an edge over you (in case one wants to stand up against the government). With the internet, people can organize and gain access to the same specialists the government has.

The same holds true for corporations, btw.

Now, the internet also allows organisation of partisan groups who won't just fight with legal means but also illegal ones. And that's what they're really afraid of. Since they already managed to bleed the "lower incomes" completely dry, not only siphoning away the little rest of their savings but also pushing them so deeply into debt that they can't spend anymore, the meager rest of the middle class is the next target. The divide between rich and poor opens wider, the number of poor people growing, and it's a matter of time until the mob reaches critical mass again. Their attempt with the increased surveillance is to make sure it's easy to identify the "heads" of such movements and decapitate them before they can gain momentum.

Re:It's time for Civil Disobedience and Regime Cha

See the Patriot Act for what it was in historical terms: a reactionary measure passed and supported by representatives of a hurting, angry nation. Considering the national mood at the time, it was the "right" thing to do: Americans were more than happy to give up essential liberties for Bush's promise of temporary security. His approval ratings set new historical record highs in the weeks immediately following the 9/11 attacks and the start of the Afghan war.

You are being naive. Passage of the Act was actively exploitative of a shocked and fearful nation. It was a massive power grab timed to take advantage of a disoriented country. You are too easy on the perpetrators of the anti-Constitution Patriot Act.

Mr. Peabody would be proud

well done Internet Archive.

Stupid Questions

I thought you couldn't discuss a NSL, so how would we know that hundreds of thousands of them have been issued?

Are they tracked somewhere publicly, and wouldn't that defeat the whole point of being secret about them?

And given that these are clear-cut violations of free speech, how is it that the entire NSL program still exists? The first time one of these was challenged, I thought any judge worth their salt would declare the NSL anti-constitutional.

Re:Stupid Questions

The first time one of these was challenged, I thought any judge worth their salt would declare the NSL anti-constitutional.

Already happened [aclu.org] To quote:

In September 2004, Judge Victor Marrero of the Southern District of New York issued a landmark decision striking down the NSL statute and the associated gag provision. In striking down the gag provision, Judge Marrero wrote: "Democracy abhors undue secrecy. . . . [A]n unlimited government warrant to conceal, effectively a form of secrecy per se, has no place in our open society." The government has said it will appeal Judge Marrero's decision. Accordingly, the case is likely to be before the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in early 2005.

So maybe someday it will get before an appeals court, and then maybe someday much later, there is the possibility it could go before the supreme court, if they would hear it. Then it could be struck down.

Re:Stupid Questions

The problem is all the "ifs" in that. "If" the Supreme Court grants certiorari.... That's such a big "if" that it's not even funny.... They've proven remarkably resistant to any attempts to strike down challenges to the "Patriot" Act in the past, up to and including the refusal to grant standing for a challenge to anyone who could not prove that their privacy had been violated in the wire tapping case.

There are just too many Bush nominees on the court for this to get struck down as unconstitutional. Bush could probably wipe his backside with the Constitution, then declare martial law and postpone the election and they probably wouldn't overrule him....

Re:Stupid Questions

The first time one of these was challenged, I thought any judge worth their salt would declare the NSL anti-constitutional.

You'd think that, but you'd be forgetting that the courts have been packed by Republicans for the last 7 1/2 years, and cumulatively, 19/12 out of the last 28 years. The courts are no more able to defend civil liberties than we are at this point; they have been too thoroughly packed with people for whom civil liberties is a dirty word associated with "flaming liberals" and "tree hugging hippies".

Yes, the NSLs are blatantly unconstitutional and represent a direct attack upon the rights of individuals to be free from unreasonable search and seizure, among other things. They also dramatically expand the power of the government to monitor the citizenry in ways that the Constitution never intended to allow and, indeed, which could not reasonably have been foreseen by the funding fathers at all. This is why the Constitution must be a living document that must be periodically revisited and updated by people whose goal is preserving liberty, not concentrating government power. Unfortunately, the Constitution's fatal flaw is that the only way it recognizes for updating the constitution is through a process that does not readily allow for apolitical review (well, not counting judicial enhancement of the Constitution through binding precedents).

For the Constitution to truly be effective, it needs a procedure for review and amendment that formally allows for and defines the process for constitutional conventions and public referendums so that a proposed Constitutional amendment, upon receiving a 2/3rds of the popular vote in two consecutive election cycles, becomes ratified without the need to go through Congress or the state governments (but subject to judicial findings of unconstitutionality if it violates any fundamental Constitutional principles). Only then can the Constitution be a truly living document that protects civil liberties in the face of those who would turn our government into a totalitarian regime, given the opportunity.

Re:Stupid Questions

cumulatively, 19/12 out of the last 28 years.

*thinks a moment* So... 44 1/3rd years? Hehe, jk.

They also dramatically expand the power of the government to monitor the citizenry in ways that the Constitution never intended to allow and, indeed, which could not reasonably have been foreseen by the funding fathers at all.

They didn't have to, any more than they had to foresee telephone or e-mail tapping, because the wording of the 4th Amendment is technology agnostic. That's the way it should be. That's why when a case of warrantless e-mail reading came before the court, the judge ruled that this was illegal. Without having to have a whole Constitutional amendment just for email (and one for text messaging, and one for IM, etc etc etc).

We don't need any change to the Constitution whatsoever to stop these abuses. We just need for the Constitution as written to be enforced. That is the problem, and making it easier to modify the Constitution would not make it more likely to be enforced. We already have an amendment that covers these situations; if you think the problem is stacked courts, why do you think they would enforce some new amendment that covers the exact same thing?

The only thing it would make more likely is that when another "ZOMG teh terrists are attacking! I can has ur liberties?" moment occurs, the people will not only allow it, they will enshrine it in the highest law of our land. At least USAPATRIOT expires, and parts of it have already had rulings against it as constitutional. You can't rule an amendment unconstitutional; and amendment is constitutional by definition.

Our system isn't perfect, but our Constitution is damn good and one of its strengths is that it can't be changed easily.

Re:Stupid Questions

how would we know that hundreds of thousands of them have been issued? Are they tracked somewhere publicly, and wouldn't that defeat the whole point of being secret about them?

I'm not saying that sometimes it helps to actually RTFA, but anyway:

Though FBI guidelines on using NSLs warned of overusing them, two Congressionally ordered audits revealed that the FBI had issued hundreds of illegal requests for student health records, telephone records and credit reports. The reports also found that the FBI had issued hundreds of thousands of NSLs since 2001, but failed to track their use. In a letter to Congress last week, the FBI admitted it can only estimate how many NSLs it has issued.

Unconstitutional or not, the whole NSL / PATRIOT stuff screams "abuse me" at 130dB.

Re:Stupid Questions

I thought you couldn't discuss a NSL...

You are probably thinking of Fight Club, the US government is committed to transparency and the rule of law.

Re:Stupid Questions

I thought you couldn't discuss a NSL, so how would we know that hundreds of thousands of them have been issued?

According to Wikipedia [wikipedia.org], semi-annual reports need to be made to congress, including a non-classified count of National Security Letters issued.

The US Department of Justice also performed an audit [usdoj.gov] in 2007 that contains some more statistics.

So much for telco immunity

Boy, I'm sure the telcos are hating this. This story shows once and for all that "the government told me to" is not a valid excuse for violating civil rights.

A true Patriot - protecting our freedom

The greatest threat to our nation is secret police powers because it allows a small group of people to take control of the government and eliminate any opposition. It is a much greater threat than any of the fictional threats.

Allowing small group of people that benefit disproportionably to the many, to create an indentured servitude is not patriotic, fighting it is. The maintaining of the separation of powers, protecting the Bill of Rights, and the Constitution as well as defending them is the is the ultimate Patriotic Act.

It is time for transfer of power from the few to the many, the wise (conservative) and those that value freedom (liberal), and those that value both, (party free independents for collective control).

Laws of changed such that we have become cattle simply to be herded and this is most unpatriotic.

In "unrelated" news...

Newest entry on US no-fly list: Brewster Kahle